A rare fond adieu: Goodbye to three able politicians

JOEL CONNELL, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By JOEL CONNELLY, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Published 8:48 pm, Monday, December 17, 2012

A burl, bellicose former Husky lineman, U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks served in Congress for 36 years and was top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee when he close to retire.Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

U.S. Rep. Norman Dicks speaks to the media after a closed briefing on 2011 U.S. Military action in Libya. Dicks was a self-described "defense Democrat" but secured millions of dollars to protect wild places in Washington, and begin cleanup of Puget Sound. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

U.S. Rep. Norman Dicks speaks to the media after a closed briefing...

"Stormin' Norman": U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks got the nickname long before Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf. He was a provider congressman, getting dollars to revitalize downtown Tacoma and launch the cleanup of Puget Sound.

"Stormin' Norman": U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks got the nickname long...

The last duty: Retiring Secretary of State Sam Reed holds up the signed certification of Referendum 74, a citizen-passed measure that legalizes same-sex marriage in the state, Gov. Chris Gregoire and Reed both signed the document at the signing ceremony, which allows gay couples to marry.

Photo: AP

The last duty: Retiring Secretary of State Sam Reed holds up...

Duties of Secretary of State Sam Reed included the job of overseeing state history. Here, Reed joins other officials to lower a 1953 time capsule into the ground outside the state Capito. Thecapsule had been missing for nearly half a century until it was found in 2002.

Photo: Paul Joseph Brown/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Duties of Secretary of State Sam Reed included the job of...

Joel Connelly has been a staff columnist for more than 30 years. He comments regularly on politics and public policy.

Bashing of politicians is, has been and always will be an American spectator sport. What we often don't appreciate is the public servants who serve us well, including ones who, on occasion. make us angry.

Self-praise and endless, exaggerated mutual tributes are the politicians' self-defense. In reaction to both the bashing and the gaseous tributes, here is one scribe's sendoff to three top-quality public officials whose terms will end as fireworks explode over the Space Needle on New Year's Eve:

-- U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks has served as Washington's provider and irrepressible presence in Washington, D.C., for 36 years -- the same length of time that his mentor, the great Sen. Warren Magnuson, served in the Senate.

Dicks has spent his entire career in the chummy, horse-trading confines of the House Appropriations Committee. Control of purse strings counts. A burly former Husky lineman, Dicks' two favorite expressions going through political life have been: "This is inside football," and "This is deep, deep background."

He could do bad stuff, like trying to ram a tennis arena into Washington, D.C.'s, Rock Creek Park. He was regularly pilloried by Citizens Against Government Waste as a pork barreler for such appropriations as the projects (e.g. Union Station) that revitalized downtown Tacoma.

He did multiple good deeds for the out-of-doors, many outside the 6th Congressional District. He saved an ancient cedar forest on Long Island in Willapa Bay and the bird nesting cliffs of Protection Island, and found money to preserve Keystone Spit and Crockett Lake on Whidbey Island.

"Stormin' Norman" was a key strategist in getting Boeing the coveted U.S. Air Force tanker refueling contract. The strategy: Skip the nationalist anti-Airbus rhetoric, and argue the case that Boeing offered a better product. Boeing had a great and good friend on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee.

A sumup anecdote: Working late, the Seattle P-I correspondent in Washington, D.C., received call from National Audubon Society nabob Brock Evans. Appropriations had just approved its budget for managing public lands. Evans was struggling over a news release: He had to, simultaneously, thank Dicks for Long Island and damn Dicks for hiking the U.S. Forest Service logging roads budget.

-- Secretary of State Sam Reed is a Republican moderate, an indicator species of America's political climate and health that is becoming as rare as the spotted owl. He runs a state office, in a Democratic state, that Republicans have held for 48 years.

How come? Reed has been an honest, progressive overseer of state elections at a time when Washington moved to mail-in ballots. He was scrupulously fair in the Gregoire-Rossi 2004 gubernatorial race: Uncounted ballots kept turning up. Gregoire won a hand recount by a margin of 133 votes.

Reed could have acted as a partisan hack, in the manner of that makeup-lathered Florida secretary of state who tried repeatedly to shut down the Bush-Gore recount. GOP Rep. Doc Hastings, a partisan hack, tried to get U.S. Attorney John McKay to intervene. McKay was fired for his professionalism. The voters rehired Reed.

Reed defended the Washington State Library when budget-cutting know-nothings in the Legislature marked it for extinction. He has kept in business state historian John Hughes, who has turned out acclaimed biographies on state leaders (ex-Gov. Booth Gardner, ex-Sen. Slade Gorton).

Reed does blow his horn a bit -- well, more than a bit -- but he's been a cool presence in something of a hot seat. A Reed protege, Kim Wyman, was elected in November to succeed him -- the lone Republican to win a statewide office.

-- State Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, a Democrat, has been targeted by Republicans in the GOP-leaning 10th District in the past five election cycles. It took 26 hit mailings of various stripes -- a couple of really vicious ones from the anti-gay Family Research Council -- but they finally beat her in 2012.

Haugen was chair of the powerful Senate Transportation Committee. She was willing to take heat and hike the gas tax when the state's infrastructure wasn't keeping pace with growth. She rewarded Whidbey constituents with two new ferries on the Coupeville-Port Townsend run, memorably declaring: "I can put money in the budget where not even the governor can find it."

Haugen was shrewd, feisty and in nobody's pocket. An astute defender of the Growth Management Act, she was targeted for defeat in 1996 by the Building Industry Association of Washington. Some years later, after helping defeat a tax on Big Oil -- the two Anacortes refineries are in her district -- she was condemned by Washington Conservation Voters.

The WCV was quietly raising money for her again this year. But it was to no avail. Haugen had drawn new enemies. She came down hard on perks and privileges among Washington State Ferries workers after a spot-on KING/5 investigative series. The ferry workers' unions defected to GOP foe Barbara Bailey.

Haugen, a very traditional Christian, was moved by a January meeting with gay constituents on Whidbey Island. She cast a key vote for marriage equality. Bailey, a state representative, voted no.

Respect used to be a path to re-election. Constituents could disagree on occasion, but still trust the person of stature. No more, it seems. Haugen was hit by special interests and by fundamentalist Christians willing to ignore the commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

She lost to a down-the-line partisan, a person of much lesser ability.

Dicks, Reed and Haugen were able people who could get things done. They weren't people to lean on, or to cross. They weren't perfect, but all three exemplified effective public service.